Holds a BA in Philosophy and an MFA in electronic music and recording media from Mills College; often works with the National Music Centre in Calgary's collection of acoustic and electronic keyboard instruments

Sarah Davachi composes experiences, her environments built on a minimalist yet all-enveloping music of psychoacoustic phenomena and physicality. These “irreal” worlds evolve gradually, Davachi's precise drones, harmonies, complex overtones and natural phasing patterns shift from harmonic progression into stillness, always with an expressive, complex emotion lurking in the vibrations.

Davachi fashions organs, strings, woodwinds, antiquated instruments and forgotten sonics into tapestries of multichannel sound, the original instruments often rendered unfamiliar through analog and modular synthesis. Many of her albums harness older synthesizers such as an EMS Synthi 100 and Buchlas to create a thick texture of sustained synth and acoustic tones that transform into melody, while fore-fronting the rich range of “imperfections” in oscillation and tune. Her album, All My Circles Run, eschews synths for one acoustic instrument per circular track, meditative overdubs exploring the depths of strings, voice, organ and piano. In performance, Davachi prefers to occupy acoustically unique spaces – caves, boathouses, churches – for dedicated listening in the dark, incorporating analog synthesizers, samples of cello, organ and harmonium that share a mutual timbral quality —while consciously including the space itself in her orchestra of sound.

Davachi returns to MUTEK informed by recent collaborations and a European tour of unconventional spaces, her lush psychoacoustic performance of extended overtones, ghost frequencies and beating patterns embedded in a night of heavy drone and expansive resonance.